This will have a major impact on the open source community, many applications have relied upon having a free VisualStudio variant to develop for, this makes it a LOT more expensive and difficult to develop desktop applications moving forward. That's really a not so subtle hint for developers to start planning a move to Metro/Windows Phone immediately. This will be a very difficult transition for many.

wow. That I didn't expect. They really are determined to shove metro down everyones throat.

I dont ever use the express versions since I have msdn account but that just seems silly.It basically means that they think the desktop has no future at the consumer level. What an absurd notion. Who at the top of MS is making those decisions. They should be fired immediately.

There are multiple cross platform frameworks/IDEs available, not only QT.

And part of me wants Visual Studio to fail.

Don't get me wrong, VS is the best IDE by FAR! But it allows for sloppy Windows locked apps. MFC Ribbon is WTF, WTL/ATL is commercial only, COM is MS only. None of them can be compiled on Mac OS or Linux.

Will the compilers still be available for free? Right now, you can get the C++/C# compilers for free through the Windows SDK, without even installing Visual Studio. If this stays true, I doubt this will affect open source much at all. You just won't be able to use the Visual Studio IDE.

jholewinski wrote:Will the compilers still be available for free? Right now, you can get the C++/C# compilers for free through the Windows SDK, without even installing Visual Studio. If this stays true, I doubt this will affect open source much at all. You just won't be able to use the Visual Studio IDE.

The Windows SDK no longer ships with a complete command-line build environment. The Windows SDK now requires a compiler and build environment to be installed separately. If you require a complete development environment, including compilers and a build environment, Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Beta is available for download.

The Windows SDK no longer ships with a complete command-line build environment. The Windows SDK now requires a compiler and build environment to be installed separately. If you require a complete development environment, including compilers and a build environment, Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Beta is available for download.

Wow, seriously? Even at $499 for the current VS 2012 Pro, that's quite a steep price for basic program (not app!) development. Thankfully VS 2010 + Win 7 SDK should still work on Win 8, just minus some features.

Here's to hoping Clang support for Windows improves alot in coming months...

jholewinski wrote:Wow, seriously? Even at $499 for the current VS 2012 Pro, that's quite a steep price for basic program (not app!) development.

Well, the price is apparently $1199 for a new (non-upgrade) copy of Pro. $499 is for people who have a team foundation server + $499 per CAL. Well so basically cheapest you will get is about $1k. For that price one can get a mac mini or entry macbook air and get Xcode for free, or go the linux route etc.